Financial Reconstruction 151
be imposed without its approval, but otherwise it could
only discuss and recommend., There was also to be (c) a
Council of State to prepare laws for admission to the
legislature. Fourthly, there were to be (d) Provincial
Councils of three to eight members elected by universal
suffrage for local affairs. These institutions, imitated
from the more liberal legislations of French North Africa,
were a sufficient instalment of self-government, and were
capable of easy expansion.
But this embryo of a democracy never had a real exist-
ence, still less an expansion. For the Anglo-Egyptian
officials had no sympathy with Egyptian self-government
and no sense of its indirect advantages. At the instance
of Lord Dufferiii's successor, Lord Cromer, then Sir
Evelyn Baring, and on the ground that it would be used
for international intrigue, the Council of State was
dropped and the initiation of all legislation was assumed
by the British advisers. The Legislative Council func-
tioned after a fashion, but never had anything like the
vitality shown by its predecessor, the Chamber of
Notables. Lord Cromer at the end of his twenty years
of administration was not opposed to '' cautious steps
towards increasing its powers, though ecany attempt to
confer full parliamentary powers would for a long time
to come be the extreme of folly" (Mod. Eg., vol. ii.t
p. 277). As for the Legislative Assembly it was treated
by this Victorian guardian as a troublesome child who,
when allowed to appear at all, was to be seen and not
heard. Lord Cromer considered it "in advance of the
requirements and political education of the country."
According to him, its main defect was one tf shared with
representative bodies in other countries in that it was too
apt to recommend fiscal changes without considering
their financial consequences/' and that "it was too